Serious beer (what else?)

Yes, I've been incredibly slack about posting. I know. A couple of weeks ago we went to a club brew day at OSU, and took over their fermentation sciences lab for a Sunday. The idea was to learn a bit about brewing on a more commercial scale (although this still doesn't approach the big breweries), and to make off with a serious amount of beer. 300L is serious in my book. A nice pictorial synopsis of the procedure is on the Heart of the Valley Homebrewers website, here.

Needless to say, there were some awesome toys. Everything was steam-heated, so no burners at all.




One key requirement for making a large volume of beer is a mechanism to move the liquid around - otherwise known as a giant pump of awesome:


You may remember our little plate chiller pictured in a previous post..... Here's one that really means business:


In other lifestyle geekiness, I've got a little mirror that goes on my glasses (or bike helmet) so I can see behind me without turning my head while cycling. I promise I won't become one of those guys who wear it all the time "so people can't sneak up on me". That's just not cool behaviour. Besides, it would totally clash with my tinfoil hat.


Since we're starting to get some warm, fine days, Mort & I headed out to see the wetlands while they're actually wet. I think we got a few odd looks from passers-by as we knelt for extended periods on the boardwalk, identifying invertebrates. We also saw our first (live) hummingbirds (I saw one in necropsy a while ago). They are crazy little birds on crack that sound like a crow trying to imitate a machine-gun through a kazoo.